BT has announced a 50% increase in data center capacity in the Benelux with the opening of a new site in Rotterdam.

The new facility, which will be operational in spring 2014, is a response to the growing demand from business customers for hosting and network-based IT services.

The Rotterdam site, which will complement BT data centers in Amsterdam and Nieuwegein, is part of BT's global network of 45 data centers and connected to BT’s worldwide network.

It will support the BT One portfolio of unified communications and collaboration services, such as Microsoft Lync and Cisco HCS.

BT said the site will meet the European Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency and would reach an Energy Usage Effectiveness (EUE) level of 1.2 or lower to support its Dutch Energy Efficiency Plan (EEP) for 2013-2016.

BT also said that it is aiming to help customers reduce carbon emissions by at least three times the end-to-end carbon impact of its own business by 2020, and to improve its overall energy efficiency in the Netherlands by 45.7% by the end of 2016.

Joris van Oers, CEO of BT Benelux, said: “As business processes become more connected across industries, and as mobility has become a standard requirement with ubiquitous real-time access to data and applications, we have seen a major surge in demand for secure, resilient and cost effective managed services.

“This has been confirmed in a recent study that found that close to 65% of Benelux executives foresee that the increasingly mobile lifestyle of employees and customers will soon become the number one driver for accelerating business processes.”